Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [81]
‘So what’s the difficulty?’
‘Listen now ... We apologized properly: “We are in despair, we beg you to forgive us this unfortunate misunderstanding.” The titular councillor with the little sausages begins to soften, but he also wants to express his feelings, and as soon as he starts expressing them, he starts getting excited and saying rude things, and I again have to employ all my diplomatic talents. “I agree that they did not behave nicely, but I beg you to consider the misunderstanding and their youth; then, too, the young men had just had lunch. You understand. They repent with all their soul, they beg to be forgiven their fault.” The titular councillor softens again: “I agree, Count, and I’m ready to forgive them, but you understand that my wife, my wife, an honourable woman, has been subjected to the pursuit, rudeness and brazenness of some boys, scound ...” And, remember, one of the boys is right there, and I’m supposed to make peace between them. Again I use diplomacy, and again, as soon as the whole affair is about to be concluded, my titular councillor gets excited, turns red, the little sausages bristle, and again I dissolve into diplomatic subtleties.’
‘Ah, this I must tell you!’ Betsy, laughing, addressed a lady who was entering her box. ‘He’s made me laugh so!’
‘Well, bonne chance,’i she added, giving Vronsky a free finger of the hand holding her fan, and lowering the slightly ridden-up bodice of her dress with a movement of her shoulders, so as to be well and properly naked when she stepped out to the foot of the stage under the gaslights and under everyone’s eyes.
Vronsky went to the French Theatre, where he indeed had to see the regimental commander, who never missed a single performance at the French Theatre, in order to talk over his peacemaking, which had already occupied and amused him for three days. Petritsky, whom he liked, was involved in this affair, as was another nice fellow, recently joined up, an excellent comrade, the young prince Kedrov. And, above all, the interests of the regiment were involved.
Both were in Vronsky’s squadron. An official, the titular councillor Wenden, had come to the regimental commander with a complaint about his officers, who had insulted his wife. His young wife, so Wenden recounted (he had been married half a year), had gone to church with her mother and, suddenly feeling unwell owing to a certain condition, had been unable to continue standing7 and had gone home in the first cab that came along. Here the officers had chased after her, she had become frightened and, feeling still more sick, had run up the stairs to her home. Wenden himself, having returned from work, had heard the bell and some voices, had gone to the door and, seeing drunken officers with a letter, had shoved them out. He had demanded severe punishment.
‘No, say what you like,’ the regimental commander had said to Vronsky, whom he had invited to his place, ‘Petritsky is becoming impossible. Not a week passes without some story. This official won’t let the affair drop, he’ll go further.’
Vronsky had seen all the unseemliness of the affair, and that a duel was not possible here, that everything must be done to mollify this titular councillor and hush the affair up. The regimental commander had summoned Vronsky precisely because he knew him to be a noble and intelligent man and, above all, a man who cherished the honour of the regiment. They had talked it over and decided that Petritsky and Kedrov would have to go to this titular councillor with Vronsky and apologize. The regimental commander and Vronsky had both realized that Vronsky’s name and his imperial aide-de-camp’s monogram ought to contribute greatly to the mollifying of the titular councillor. And, indeed, these two means had proved partly effective; but the result of the reconciliation remained doubtful, as Vronsky had told Betsy.
Arriving at the French Theatre, Vronsky withdrew to the foyer with the